The mobile phone and the public sphere: mobile phone usage in three critical situations (3.2 Networks of information: blogging, citizen journalism & collective intelligence)

Of course mobile phones can be used as a tool to capture news in the public sphere. Mobile phones nowadays are no different then a camera except for the calling function part. Camera’s and phones almost match each other hardware spec wise so when it comes to a journalist obtaining information for a news article then I think information no matter where it comes from  as long as it’s clear and credible then it does not matter on the technology of choice.

 

….to be continued

References:

Gordon, J. (2007). The mobile phone and the public sphere: mobile phone usage in three critical situations. Convergence 13(3), 307-319.

‘Blogs of war’ : Weblogs as news (3.2 Networks of information: blogging, citizen journalism & collective intelligence)

There is a huge difference between a blog and sites which are dedicated to news. News sites normally target specific stories and blogs normally reflect personally against certain stories. They can however be seen as the same thing when they fade into each other but people must be aware of the small differences.

When I’m referring to fading I mean newspapers and blogs both have journalists that create stories but where they might also fade into each other again and again is the quality of the stories. What story is real and what is fake? With journalism this is hard to distinguish depending on where people read the sources from. Newspapers and new channels are much easier to distinguish then blogs because of their nature.

Blog’s are very opinionated because that’s what blog’s are designed to be somewhere to write what’s on your mind. Whereas newspapers, radio and television news normally get all their stories from multiple sources which most of the time have credibility because a lot of thorough research has been placed into news stories by news reporters.

Even though I state that bloggers or blog news is very opinionated I cannot base it on every news blog because some news are really based off true life stories with real credible sources. I merely referring to the majority of news blogs and personal opinionated stories. But yes it’s true the way journalism has changed socially is here to stay and as technology becomes more advanced these changes will also alter with the technology.

References:

Melissa Wall, (2005). Blogs of war: weblogs as news. Journalism 6 (2), 153-72.

Journalism in a digital age (3.1 Inform me! news media)

This paper dates back to 2003 however what they talk about in regards to online news and journalism refers back to the year 2000 I would expect the most watched media which was US television back then will now become much closer to the Internet seeing as it’s now 2011 and technology has grown so much.

People will always own a TV and TV will always follow the household tradition of being viewed in the morning and of an evening. Usually a family with kids will dedicate a channel for the kids during viewing times of the morning for cartoons and afternoon for shows like Play school. However when the parents get home for work they normally switch on the TV to see what’s going on around the world. I’m guessing the TV is still very much family orientated but I think as technology grows and devices such as Smart phones and tablets take over then eventually TV’s might be used for something else.

In regards to media stories I think no matter the medium newspaper or TV that when a certain story comes out and it’s of certain importance that the media makes sure it get’s flooded throughout. Like where Mr.Gates could control what get’s publicized I still think that same hierarchy is there today with all types of media platforms including TV, newspaper’s and the Internet.

The quality does not change in journalism whether it is hard copy written or internet media platform based. It all depends and relies on the credible sources whether print or web.

Printing publications may eventually fade out as technology and news being easily reachable online for free grow but there will always be those people that like doing things the old way or some way that is different then everybody else.

References:

Christopher Harper (2003). Journalism in a digital age. In H. Jenkins  & D. Thorburn (Eds), Democracy and New Media (pp. 271-280). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

2.5 All the world’s a game: virtual worlds, interactivity, convergence (Playing on the digital commons: collectivities, capital and contestation in videogame culture)

This article covered quite a bit in the digital play arena. I’m a big believer in both free and open source software so when the article was touching upon the warez scenario then my history of the old days came back to life. Games and Software piracy do affect sales however it also open’s up a doors for other opportunities. Maybe stealing software can be seen the same way as stealing a car but can it? A car you can test drive before you buy the full product without limitations. But software you can try for 15-30 days but most software has limitations. Most people after spending over $1000 dollars for a new PC do not want to spend anything more to obtain software to do further tasks.

I think sharing software whether it be free or commercial should be allowed unless you are planning to make money from it. As long as you are not affecting the developers income I think sharing software around will give the producers more product awareness. The more and more people that use a certain software the faster the word will spread around. I’m not saying downloading software for free is the right thing to do but I’m saying using and testing software for free shouldn’t harm anybody.

If a company designs a game like WOW (World of Warcraft). I believe a company no matter what EULA agreement they make their users agree to before playing a game should not allow them to control the content the players create. If a game is purchased for over 100 dollars then a user has to pay $30 monthly for a subscription fee then why does it give Blizzard the right to own everything the player creates in the virtual world? It should be the other way around where Blizzard should have full ownership of the world and environment but not the players and items.

Companies like Blizzard are what causes warez groups to release free software in the first place. The warez groups try to take ownership control back by releasing various free games and software.

If I own a game I also expect to own everything I create in the game. You purchase a computer so you expect to own the computer to do as you wish. The same way should follow with software no matter if software is free or not it should be allowed to be modified.

I’m open for discussion on this topic 🙂

References:

Sarah Colman and Nick Dyer-Witheford (2007). Playing on the digital commons: collectivities, capital and contestation in videogame culture.  Media, Culture and Society 29 (6), 934-953.

2.5 All the world’s a game: virtual worlds, interactivity, convergence (Alternate Reality Gaming and convergence culture: The case of Alias)

Regarding the “The case of Alias” when mixing internet technologies and TV media fan bases of course you will run into a media orientated participatory culture. Most anything these days that has a TV fan base or movie fan base also has an alternative media platform to consume online whether it be books, comics or web based games. The participatory culture we have today and the easy access that we all have to the internet allows communities, fans to produce, share and consume media online.

As a fan, as a community that participates and consumes different media online. The only way this media can survive online with the technology we all use today is staying active as a community. The internet and it’s technology these days has given such powerful tools for people to share and consume their own creations. If a fanbase creates itself from a piece of commercial media this fanbase can only survive if fans continue to support it.

Even though their can be a powerful shift away from active, participatory media audiences this does not mean that every fan base that get’s created from commercially released identities will follow down the same path.

References:
Ornebring, H. (2007). Alternate Reality Gaming and convergence culture: The case of Alias. International Journal of Cultural Studies 10(4), 445-462.

The War between effects and meaning: Rethinking the video game debate (2.4 Play with me!: Having fun with media)

I have to agree to most of what Henry Jenkins has said in this article. I used to play online games specifically online shooter’s like “Counterstrike”. I would have played online first person shooters for roughly 6-7 years, This has in no way changed my behaviour towards violence. I’m not a violent person and I never re-enacted any game I have ever played which contained violence. However playing these sorts of games has taught me to make quicker decisions and train my mind of where to look for enemies.

I know myself I look around corners and all around the place searching for something even though i’m looking for nothing I guess it has mentally sunk in from playing too much shooting games. Even though I have mentally changed in some way it has had no effect in turning me into a violent person. Games have allowed me to socialise better online because I lacked that skill in the real world. Games have also taught me many things like opening up my mind to bigger things and allows me to think critically on a different level.

References:

Jenkins, H. (2006). The War between effects and meaning: Rethinking the video game debate. In D. Buckingham & R. Willett (Eds.), Digital Generations: Children, Young People, and New Media (pp 19-31).

Claiming a stake in the videogame: what grown-ups say to rationalise and normalise gaming (2.4 Play with me!: Having fun with media)

“Claiming a stake in the videogame” article was quite interesting to me because not so long ago I would have fit into this criteria, especially the so called “geek” label. The reason why I have placed myself into the geek label is not because I’m putting myself down but I’m rather matching myself to certain criteria’s that were mentioned in this article. I was never the social type of person growing up in primary school through to high school but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have a social aspect to me it rather meant that I was a lot quieter then most people when it came to interacting with others.

Most my primary and high school life I would finish school and normally race home to play online games. It never was the social aspect that got me so attracted to games. I guess I filled the missing social aspect of my life with computer games which didn’t require the same interactions. Don’t get me wrong I could interact with people online but it’s different socialising online then 1 on 1 conversations in real life.

I enjoyed playing games alone in my room because it was peaceful and it was away for me to escape. Because I was not the social type and the only way I really knew how to socialise was online through games this habit quickly grew on me and was hard to reverse engineer.

I did enjoy playing games with my friends over their house but normally you would find me wanting to stay home in my room rather then going anywhere else. It was the way I enjoyed doing things, it was the way I was comfortable operating.

My parents always used to tell me to get off the computer because I would spend too many hours in my room without many breaks. Probably around 8 hours per day sometimes; now most people would say this was unhealthy but I did do a lot of gym. It wasn’t the health aspect I worried about and I didn’t see myself as spending too many hours playing online games. I would always compare the same theory around if my parents can watch that much TV then why can I not play that much games. Back then I saw it both ways exactly the same.

References:

Helen Thornton, (2009). Claiming a stake in the videogame: what grown-ups say to rationalise and normalise gaming. Convergence 15 (2), 135-139.

Media Texts from other cultures (2.3 Entertaining the world: using media across cultural boundaries)

When considering what I take from other cultures because we are so lucky to have such a fast network infrastructure it makes it so easy for us to access media from different cultures. Even though I do watch Australian TV and movies which are normally played and released at the local cinema I do however go searching for movies which i cannot get.

A good example of this would be a movie called Legendary Assassin (2008) which is a Chinese movie so I had to watch this movie with English subtitles over the top. Why this type of movie? Well I enjoy something different and I’m very interested in the Asian culture. I love fighting movies and especially Asian fighting movies.

Another one would be Ip Man 1,2,3 there is quite a few of them. Even though this title is in Australia I would have got the release when it was first over there so all these Asian movies I obtain before it releases in Australia I have to watch them with subtitles.

It’s not only movies sometimes I enjoy listening to Chinese music, Thai music even though I don’t understand every word. It makes me feel that i’m moving from one culture to another and it also makes me feel excited about all the new material I indulge myself into.

You could call me a “pop cosmopolitan” but what generation isn’t a pop cosmopolitan? I think we are so connected these days its hard to pick one culture from the other unless you live in that certain country?

Indigenous, ethnic and cultural articulations of new media (2.3 Entertaining the world: using media across cultural boundaries)

The digital divide affected Indigenous and Ethic communities because they cannot afford such infrastructures. Distance between the reservations were effecting communications and this brought them apart no longer were the 19 reservations considered as a family. But this all changed when Hewlett Packard decided to fund up to 5 million dollars towards a project called “Tribe Peace” (Srinivasan, R, 2006). This communication network structure put in place would never have been made possible unless a company with such power and wealth like Hewlett Packard could fund such a project. Now all 19 reservations could discuss political, cultural and social issues that arise and needs to be resolved. Distance once made this impossible but now due to the network infrastructure all that has been put in the past.

References:

Srinivasan, R (2006). Indigenous, ethnic and cultural articulations of new media. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 9(4), 497-518.

Pop cosmospolitanism (2.3 Entertaining the world: using media across cultural boundaries)

The main point’s of this reading were:

• Globalization has changed many people’s culture.

Because technology has allowed the world to be so closely connected it has also opened our eyes in regards to how we think and process things. A good example would be the way we dress on an international scale we are all following trends. Our eating and drinking habits. The world as a culture instead of being so separate in the way we do things we are becoming closer everyday no matter what language barriers are in place.

• People who indulge themselves in global media as an escape route out of their local community.

People are finding alternative media to attach themselves to; A good example would be mixing American culture with Asian culture. Playing Pokemon live on American TV. This gives American’s an escape route into something different. It gives them the chance to become a fanfic of another culture. This would not have been made possible without having the technology available that we have today.

• Pop Cosmopolitanism is a mix of participatory culture and media convergence in a global context.

This basically means everyone on a global scale is participating and converging in different types of media. Not only do we have one culture participating but we have cultures worldwide contributing to their skills and experiences. Cultures are beginning to form as one as technology allows this to happen.

• Technology has allowed cultures to mix and share experiences world wide. This has caused cultures to change their ways, styles, food & drinking habits and even music and many other living ways of life.

Not all cultures have mixed but the cultures that have access to technology in their area and which are affordable has allowed everyone to experience from each other. The more connected the world becomes, the more we will all change as one.

• The difference between corporate convergence and Grassroots convergence.

Basically Corporate convergence is all about media ownership and making sure that media flows no matter what culture it becomes a part of. Grassroots convergence is all about how technology has empowered us to produce, distribute and view media.

References:

Jenkins, H (2006). Pop cosmospolitanism: Mapping cultural flows in an age of media convergence. In H. Jenkins, Fans, bloggers and gamers: exploring participatory culture (pp 152-172).